Stranger Among Us
by IntraSule
Summary: Inspired by (completely ripped off of) a story by comedian Matt Braugner. The Bad Touch Trio have another party at Gilbert's place. Just when they were ready to go to sleep after a night of getting drunk and high, Gilbert confronts his friends for downing his special beer. But neither Francis nor Antonio drunk it. So who did...? Warning: Yaoi implications and swearing.


I don't own Hetalia, folks, as surprising and sad as that sounds.

* * *

There's a well-known saying that goes: "When the cats are away, the mice will come out to play," and that sort of quote can apply to the Bad Touch Trio. When Ludwig left the Beilschmidt house to spend his week-long vacation in Italy with Feliciano, Gilbert Beilschmidt happily rang up his pals Antonio Carriedo and Francis Bonnefoy with his code phrase: "the clock has lost its cuckoo, the clock can now chime," in case Ludwig had somehow managed to tap the phone lines to spy on his older brother. Immediately, Francis and Antonio drove to their countries' airports, purchased available seats, and flew to Germany to visit Gilbert.

As soon as the three men stepped feet onto the Beilschmidt doorstep, all insanity broke loose. Gilbert brought out the beer and wine, Antonio shared with them the "special brownies" he stole from Jan and Mathias, and Francis passed out neon glow sticks he bought from the German airport when he landed. They dimmed down the living room lights and started guzzling down the liquor and brownies.

Gilbert stumbled drunkenly to his iPod speakers. " 'Ey, you guysssss," he slurred in a surprisingly high pitched voice, drunk from his fourth pint of beer and high from his second piece of brownie. "W-which song do you wanna play?"

"DISCO POGO!" Francis and Antonio hollered excitedly.

"Disco Pogo it is!" Gilbert flipped through his iPod playlists to get to his party songs and scrolled down to Disco Pogo- the six hour version. He turned the volume up high and sauntered to his guests, swaying his hips to the steady techno beat.

And as the electronic voice said "Disco Pogo," the three-man dance party truly began, with the men jumping in place, pumping their fists in the air, waving their glow sticks, and spilling beer, wine, and brownie crumbs all over Ludwig's snow white carpet. At some point, the men took off their shirts and panted heavily as if they were taking each other's virginity. Gilbert and Antonio slowly drew closer to each other, dancing nose to nose and laughing giddily while Francis started dancing on a broomstick like a pole dancer, teasingly fiddling with the hem of his pants as if he was going to strip his pants but didn't. So the men danced in their sexual manner, half-naked with sweaty, bare chests, not once thinking that maybe moving their bodies so sensually without the presence of women to ogle them and yearn for them might challenge and outright _destroy_ their heterosexual image and claims.

"Hey, Gilbert this is an awesome party!" Antonio shouted over the music as he and Gilbert ground against each other.

"Yeah, man, only the most awesome people can throw awesome parties like this!" Gilbert shouted back, turning around so Antonio can give his butt a quick spank. "Whoo!"

"Yeah, it is," Francis added, "but don't you think it's been too long, now? We've been dancing for hours and I'm getting kind of tired."

"Aw, come on, Fwancy pants!" Gilbert whined. "You barely got started and now you wanna call it quits? Lame ass!"

"He does have a point," Antonio said. "I mean, we flew all the way over here to party with you and arrived sort of late. I'm a bit sleepy myself." He smiled gently at Gilbert's pout. "We can always continue this tomorrow!"

"Ugh, fine!" Gilbert stomped towards the iPod speakers and turned it off. "Pardy's over, you guys," he said, crossing his arms and pouting harder. The two men collapsed where they stood, making Gilbert roll his eyes in annoyance. "This is not the Bad Touch gang I use to know; you guys are gettin' old on me!"

"Says the guy who's the oldest of us all," Antonio sneered as he stood up and helped Francis stand.

"Ja, but _I _live by the old rule that you are as young as you feel, and right about now, I'm as young as a senior high school football player ready to pop some lilies of some cheerleaders!" He frowned as Francis and Antonio started sniggering. "What?"

"I might be old," Antonio chuckled, "but I'm still young enough to know that teenage boys don't say things like 'pop some lilies' like some Shakespearean reader!"

"Oui, Gilly, that's some Arthur Kikland shit!" Francis chimed in.

"Ugh, whatever! Just get the hell out of my living room!" Gilbert waved his hands and shooed the men upstairs to the guest bedrooms, where they flung themselves onto the beds and passed out. Gilbert sluggishly made his way to his basement, finally feeling the effects of hours-long dancing taking its toll on his body. Before he pulled out the mattress from the couch and get some rest, he went to the special beer cabinet he built a long time ago to retrieve the new beer Ludwig's beer company gave to him for testing, _Schlange Gift, _to finally taste what he hoped was the best tasting brew ever made.

The beer had to be amazing; according to the makers, the genetic engineers modified some barely and molasses to make them sweeter and added the starch of yams and potatoes to the ingredients, with just a hint of red pepper to add a tingly pep to the taste. Literally bouncing on his toes in excitement, Gilbert opened the cabinet and took out an emerald green beer bottle from the fixture's shelf and admired the utensil in his hand; even the bottle had to be prettied up to meet the standards of the epic taaste.

"Oh, this is going to taste so friggin' _good!_" Gilbert squealed. He unscrewed the cap and sniffed at the brim. "Mmm..." He tilted the bottle back into his mouth, but nothing came. "Hey! What the-?" he looked inside the bottle to find it empty. "What?! But how-?" He then had a thought.

"Those two..." he snarled quietly, gripping the bottle in his palm tightly in fury. He hurriedly stomp up the two levels above the basement and barged into the guest bedroom where Francis should've been, momentarily shocked to find Antonio in bed with him, cuddling the Frenchman close to him in his sleep. "Wha...? Oh, never mind that!" He yanked the duvet off the two men, exposing them to the much cooler air in the room. The two men sat up straight in the bed, shivering and glaring sleepily at the Prussian.

"Hey! What the hell is your problem?" Antonio hissed, reaching for a corner of the duvet still on the bed.

Gilbert yanked the duvet further away and tossed it on the floor. "_This is my problem!_" he yelled, practically shoving the empty bottle in Antonio's face.

Antonio crossed his eyes to look at the bottle under his nose. "...Okay...?"

"IT'S EMPTY! IT'S EMPTY, DAMMIT!" Gilbert screamed as he tossed the bottle on the bed in anger. He pointed an accusing finger at them. "And I _know _that it's because you guys drunk it all! How unawesome of you! Who the hell drinks his best friend's private beer without permission?! Lame asses, that's who!"

"_Que?!_" Antonio growled with his fists shaking; he wasn't at his most jovial when he was this far in sleep deprivation. "Are you fucking telling me you woke me up this late in the night to bitch about some beer that we've never even _knew _existed?! Get lost, Gilbert!" He lied back down on the bed and buried his head under a pillow.

Gilbert yanked the pillow away and stood with his hands on his hips. "You guys didn't drink just some beer, you asshole! It was special beer Ludwig's beer company gave to me to test with the most awesome ingredients such a refined palette such as my own would've enjoyed!"

_Wow, he's been tossing around that "refined palette" phrase a lot ever since I first taught it to him, _Francis mentally noted s he watched the heated argument between Gilbert and Antonio climax. He sighed and put his hands up between the two, effectively cutting them off. "Gilbert, I know that you are tired and drunk-"

"Ja! And I would've been more drunk if you guys didn't steal my beer!"

"...As I was saying, Gilbert, I know that you're drunk and high and tired, so this might not be easy, but I need you to think about what you are accusing us of and how that seems totally impossible." He gestured to himself and Antonio. "All three of us were in that living room for six hours straight, doing nothing but dancing and drinking the alcohol _you offered us. _Nothing more and nothing less."

"But then one of you guys must've snuck off to the basement while I wasn't paying attention!"

"Amigo, we were dancing _really _close to each other, especially you and I..." he trailed off, finally noticing hours later how strangely erotic that was for two straight friends. "...Uh, anyway, we were dancing really close, so you should've been able to notice if either of us went missing during. So, did you?"

"...Uh...no...?"

"There, problem solved!" Antonio reached for the duvet, making grabby hands in its direction. "Now hand the blanket over!"

"No! Problem _not _solved!" Gilbert yelled, slapping Antonio's hands. "Like I said, you could've snuck off while I wasn't paying attention or something and drunk it all! And yeah, maybe _you _were dancing close to me, but what about Frenchy over here, huh?!" His ruby eyes shot quickly towards Francis, who groaned in annoyance. "I didn't feel you rubbing my ass downstairs!"

Antonio gaped. "H-hold on just a damn second! I wasn't rubbing your ass, either!"

"Oh, really, now?" Gilbert sneered cockily. "So those hands that were feeling up my ass and taking on a groping session didn't belong to you, then? The man who was pressing his dick against me the entire time and practically moaning in my ear? You expect me to believe you snuck in an ass-groping or two, or _five?"_

Antonio paled. "W-well, okay, I admit that maybe we were dancing too close...and our pelvises were touching..." He looked away sheepishly, blushing and fiddling with his fingers. "...and maybe I did moan a couple of times..."

"And you did kind of smack his butt once," Francis interrupted. "I saw that."

"OKAY! Okay, so I did those things, but I didn't let it come to groping! You might be my friends, but I would never do some sick shit like that with you guys! We aren't _that_ close! And it's not like you were protesting or anything!"

"Okay, you guys, seriously, as funny and hot this whole argument is," Francis interrupted, fighting the urge to use his supernatural seduction skills to lure his friends into a rough three way, "we are getting really off track to the main reason that Gilbert's here screaming like a maniac: the beer. The beer which I had nothing to do with." He looked at Gilbert straight in the eyes. "Gilbert, you know that as friends, none of us would just simply steal from each other. We're not barbarians, and we're not enemies, so this whole thing is pointless. Are you sure you didn't just drink it and forgot?"

"Yeah, he has a point," Antonio said. "You do tend to forget a lot of things when you drink this heavily. Maybe you drunk it, passed out, woke up again, and thought, 'hm, I'd like to try that beer!' and went to get it only to find that you drained it, already."

"Oh, ha ha ha, very funny, you assholes!"

"Gilbert, why not just ask Ludwig for another sample if this new beer is so damn important?" Francis suggested, hoping to placate the man.

"It's not even about the freaking beer, anymore!" Gilbert cried, flailing his arms angrily. "I don't freaking care about the freaking beer! I just want your honesty! Just come clean already and admit to what you did!"

"No one did anything, Gilbert!" Antonio shouted. He slammed his hand on the bed beneath him in frustration. "We are telling you the freaking truth! Now let us go to sleep, you fucking idiot!"

"You guys are so fucking unbelievable!" Gilbert shrieked. "I'm willing to let go of the whole beer thing if I can get just a bit, a_ tiny bit, _of honesty from you guys, but you can't even give me that!"

"Oh, Dios mío, por favor golpear a este hombre, ya!" Antonio grumbled tiredly. He threw his hands up in frustration and snapped back, "How about instead of trying to get us to admit to something we didn't even do, you fess up to your drinking problem!"

"No! You tell me that you drunk this beer so we can call it a night!"

"No way, José! You tell the truth!"

"No, you tell the truth!"

"No, you!"

"No, you, you jackass!"

And the exchange went on like that for about an hour, Francis watching the immature and unoriginal comebacks fly between the two with mild amusement. But somewhere along the line, the ferocity and determination became lost within the exchange, fear replacing the boiling anger and frustration. Somewhere along the line, the whole point of the argument- to have someone admit to drinking too much or admit that he stole the beer- disappeared when a new purpose arose. Somewhere along the line, the three men started to hear noises: footsteps and breathing that were soft at first, but became more prominent as the verbal fight continued.

"C-come on, dudes, seriously, j-just tell me you did it," Gilbert stammered. He jumped when he felt warm air tickle the back of his neck.

"N-no, you, Gil!" Antonio whimpered. "Stop joking around a-a-and just admit it, amigo!" He squealed in fright as he heard a light footstep somewhere around the bed.

"Toni, I'm not fucking joking, man! Just please say that you did it! Please!"

"Eh heh heh heh heh heh..."

Gilbert and Antonio slowly turned their heads towards Francis. "W-w-what's so funny, Francis?" Gilbert asked almost pleadingly. "W-why are y-you laughing?"

Francis's eyes grew wide and his expression became blank. "...I didn't laugh..."

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!" The trio screamed as Francis and Antonio jumped out of bed to hug Gilbert in fear. They whipped their heads around to spot the source of chuckling, but they were the only human beings in the room. In the entire house.

"Oh Dios mio, oh Dios mio, oh Dios mio!" Antonio whimpered. He crossed himself. "Holy Mary, Mother of God, please forgive us our sins..."

"H-hey, don't start praying now, Antonio!" Gilbert hissed as tears poured from his eyes. "That's a sign of death, you Dummkofp!"

"Well, if we're going to die, I'd like to be sure that we get to heaven at the very least!" Antonio hissed back, his own cheeks soaked from tears as well.

"Damn, man, don't you have any faith in your masculinity? We're men, we shouldn't be cowering like this!" Gilbert pushed his friends off of him. "We gotta fight back! We gotta find this damn intruder or whatever it is and drive it out of my brother's home!"

"How the heck are we to do such a thing, Gil?" Francis asked.

Gilbert smirked in spite of his growing fear. "We'll just have to go BTT Medival on this ghost's ass!"

"Y-you know what, you're right!" Antonio shouted with his newfound bravery giving him elation. "We shouldn't be scared by some stupid entity that is too scared to come at us! We should find that scumbag and kick his ass!"

"And hard, too!" Francis added, making a fist of fierce determination.

"Heck ja! Let's go!" Gilbert ordered excitedly, leading the group out the bedroom and into the unknown.

So, with the beer, argument, and whole yaoi dance scene forgotten, the Bad Touch Trio crept along the upper level of the Beilschmidt manor, Antonio holding his battle axe above his head, Francis holding his rapier beside him to prevent self-injury, and Gilbert gripping the handle of his frying pan tightly in front of him. They checked all of the upper rooms and closets, calling out softly, "Come on out, Mr. Intruder Guy." When they didn't spot any sort of intruder among the upper level, Gilbert led them to the stairs. Slowly, taking one step at a time, the trio went downstairs to the lower level, still afraid of encountering the intruder in the house. At the base, Gilbert stopped and bent low. He looked over his shoulder at his friends, commanding their attention with his militant stare. He then silently made some gestures with one of his hands: a peace sign, the number three, right point, left point, the hand sign for the letter "f" and what appeared to be a bunny head.

Antonio and Francis gave him blank expressions. "Dude, what the hell does all of that stupidity even mean?" Antonio deadpanned.

Gilbert flipped him off and waved them forward. They tip toed to the back of the sofa and crouched low behind it. Looking over the sofa's back, Gilbert whispered, "Okay, guys, new plan: in order to end this quickly and get this fucking intruder out of the house, we're going to have to split up."

"What?!" Francis and Antonio hissed. "Are you still high or something?!"

"Hey, I don't like the idea either, but if we cover more ground as individuals, we could find this person or ghost or whatever more quickly than if we did it huddled together all of the time. Look, all we need to do is go searching and if we find anything or get into danger, we holler and the remaining men come, got it?"

At first, the two men opened their mouths as if to protest further, but they both sighed and nodded in compliance. "I guess you do have a point," Antonio said in resignation.

"Good men! Now, Francis will check the kitchen and bathrooms, Antonio will check the closets and recreation room, and I'll handle the basement since I know that place like the back of my hand. Go!" The men set off to their destinations, albeit a bit hesitantly.

Francis tiptoed into the kitchen, rapier held steady in front of him. He toed the swinging door ajar and poked his head in. "Excusez-moi, mister intruder person," he said into the dark room, "but would you mind coming out of your hiding? You see, you came in here uninvited- which is, needless to say, rude- and you kind of gave me and my friends a fright, so if you could just- HYAH!"

He suddenly leapt into the air from the doorway and landed stealthily on the kitchen island, crouching low and smirking into the darkness. "I dare you to attack me, you silly invader, you! Come on, I'm not afraid of you, anymore!" He started to swing his rapier around him, attacking the pots and pans hanging above his head on a pot rack and making a lot of metallic banging noise. As he calmed down enough, Francis swept his eyes through the area around him, but he didn't see any sign of an intruder. "Huh, I guess this area's clear," Francis said to himself. He hopped off the island and began to walk towards the lower level bathrooms.

Antonio, quivering and muttering the Holy Mary prayer repeatedly under his breath, gripped the handle of his axe with sweaty palms and crept to his first closet, his bowels feeling as if they were going to dispel their contents any moment. "U-um, okay, uh, listen here, mi amigo!" He called weakly, his courage deflated after the group split. He slowly reached for the closet's doorknob. "I'm, uh, going to open this closet now, and if I-I see you inside, I-I-I won't h-hold back, y'hear?!"

Before he completely lost all of his resolve, Antonio yanked the door open and screamed a faux battle cry. "Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!" He went, grunting and crying as he swung his axe blindly into the small space. After what seemed like forever, Antonio finally stopped swinging and cracked an eye open. Instead of a person in the closet as he had fear, Antonio had shredded Ludwig's coats and military uniform into cloth confetti. He sighed in relief and almost cried tears of joy at not meeting the ghost/intruder/unknown entity; sure, he'll have to deal with the wrath of Gilbert's younger brother when he comes home, but that'll be for another time. He survived this!

Feeling giddy from relief, Antonio prepared to do a victorious happy dance when it hit him: he has at least three other closets and an entire recreational room to search in.

"...Fuck my life hard," Antonio moaned tiredly. He dragged his now-heavier axe alongside him as he went in the direction of the next closet, his entire body and mind completely drained of energy and optimism.

The last to reach his designated search area was Gilbert, who leapt over all of the steps to the basement and landed on his butt with a loud thud. "...Ow," Gilbert winced as he stood up slowly. He rubbed his sore derriere and limped into the basement's dark recesses. He set his face into a hard glare to hide the increasing amount of terror growing inside him. He brought his pan up to chest level as if holding a tennis racket.

"Yo, home invader, listen up!" Gilbert shouted into the basement as he tiptoed into his makeshift room, using his poor Italian accent he practiced from watching Lovino's mafia movies Antonio lent him to sound more intimidating. "My friends and I don't take kindly to fucking fools just coming into a person's house as if they're best buddies and shit, but I'm a nice guy, so I'm gonna give you this: I'm going to count to ten, and you'll have until ten to get your ugly, cowardly ass out of hiding and leave my house, capisce?!" He quieted himself to hear any sounds of agreement. "...One..." Nothing. "...Two..." Still nothing. "...Three...four...five...?" His heart started hammering in his ears. Suddenly, Gilbert made out a silhouette of a floating orb in the very weak light of the basement.

"SIX SEVEN EIGHT NINE TEN!" Gilbert counted quickly as he immediately charged towards the floating object. He swung his frying pan wildly in all directions, shouting over and over, "Die, alien ghost intruder scum, die!" When his shoulders grew sore, he stopped swinging his pan and took a minute to catch his breath. He then back to swinging his pan around to be sure that he really got the creature. He finally stopped to rest and take a good look at his target.

"...Tweet tweet?"

"GILBIRD!" Gilbert cried, nuzzling his nose into the puff of yellow feathers. "Oh, mein Gott, Gilly, you shouldn't scare your daddy like that! Don't you know that we have an intruder in the house with us? Oh, my goodness, are you okay?!" He turned the bird around in his hand, checking to see if any of his wild swings made contact, but not a feather was out of place. He sighed in relief, but then he noticed that with all of that swinging, not one of them hit Gilbird. "...My aiming sucks," Gilbert muttered in thought. He turned his attention back to the little bird. "Yo, Gilly, have you seen anyone in this basement by any chance? You know, a stranger that looks like he or she doesn't belong here?"

"Tweet twiddle!" Gilbird chirped.

"Oh, okay then, thanks," Gilbert replied. "Heh, looks like my work here is done. Come on, let's go check on the other two's progress!" He placed Gilbird on top of his head and turned around to the stairs. Climbing to the top and walking through the hall, Gilbert noticed as he turned the corner that Antonio and Francis were already back in the living room, Antonio visibly pale and Francis consoling the Spaniard. "Uh, is everything okay?"

"I h-hate my l-l-life," Antonio stuttered. He trembled and ground his teeth.

"Whoa, what's wrong with him?" Gilbert asked. He gave Francis a questioning look.

"Nothing, Gil," Francis sighed. "Antonio just went into shock because his heart could not take the high amount of anxiety he felt every time he opened a closet door or go into that recreational room alone." He started rubbing Antonio's shoulder.

"Too...many...closets..." Antonio said as he stared into space.

"I know, mon ami, I know," Francis whispered soothingly.

"Aw, shit, Antonio, you're such a little girl man boy!" Gilbert spat condescendingly. "You only had to open like three or four closet doors or something! Did either of you guys find any intruders at all?"

"No," Francis replied. Antonio shook his head spastically.

"Then you're freaking twice the little girl man boy for being frightened for nothing!" Gilbert then laughed. "Haw haw, wow, so there was no freaking intruder or ghost or anything, then?"

"I guess not," Francis shrugged.

"Ah haw haw haw haw! So we were scared shitless for nothing?!"

Giving Gilbert's question some thought, Francis chuckled lightheartedly. "Oui, I guess so, Gilbert!" He nudged Antonio's arm and laughed louder. "You hear that, Toni? We're safe! I guess we had a little too much of that brownie! Hon hon hon!"

"Eh heh heh heh, yeah, I guess you're right," Antonio said. He chuckled nervously, still shook up from the fear of some intruder popping out at him and attacking him and ripping apart his limbs and gutting him of all his organs, but the relief and jubilation in the air eased the inward tension he held, and he was able to laugh more easily. "Yeah, this was a pretty fun night, Gilbert! Pffft, I can't believe we were so high that we actually started hearing noises! Man, I can't wait to tell Lovi about this little adventure we had!"

"Yeah, it was pretty fun! Hee hee!"

The three men became as stiff as stone statues, their spines shivering rapidly in fright. Slowly, they turned their heads in the direction of the soft, unknown voice and paled from head to toe, Gilbert becoming more pale than usual. In the small light from the hallway, Gilbert, Francis, and Antonio made out a silhouette of a shape, and the longer they stared at it, the more they could make out a head with hair just touching below the chin. A blurry face came on the head, and the face gave a gentle yet eerie smile. The shape glided across the room and went to the front door.

"Oh, and you have a pretty nice butt, Gilbert," the shape giggled before passing through the door and exiting the house.

The men watched the shape leave, their hair literally rising as it came closer to them, passed by them, and left the house.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!" The men finally screamed, sprinting up the stairs, into Ludwig's room, and jumping into his bed and hiding underneath his covers, determined to never leave the safety of the bed until Ludwig came home to protect them all.

Outside the house's doors, the human-like shape listened with smug amusement at the men's screams and their running feet until the sounds stopped. Smiling to himself, the shape fished his cell phone out of his pocket, dialed a number, and brought the phone to the place where his ear would be.

"Yes?" Ludwig greeted as he answered the phone call.

"Hi, Ludwig, Matthew here! I checked on Gilbert for you, and you're right, he did invite his friends over for a party. I took care of it, but I wasn't able to drive Francis and Antonio out, sorry."

"Oh, why thank you, Matthew!" Ludwig said. "And no need to apologize about not driving them out; I just need to be sure that they don't destroy my house anymore so than they usually do."

"Oh, okay, then! Well, I'll stop by tomorrow to give them another check up, alright? Have a nice visit to Italy, and say hi to Feliciano for me!"

"Will do, Matthew, and thank you again! Goodbye."

"Later!" Matthew ended his phone call and smirked. "That beer was delicious," he said to himself as he started to glide away from the doorstep.


End file.
